Deuteronomy 7-8: Release the drive bee!

Yep, they are still near the Jordan River listening to Moses prattle on. I am beginning to suspect he is going to do this for the entire book of Deuteronomy.

Here Moses starts talking about their impending conquest of the promised land. He says that "God will drive them out," though I suspect it will actually be the Israelites doing that; we'll just have to wait and see.

Moses reminds them (for the gazillionth time) to fucking kill everybody. No mercy! Don't spare the children, don't marry the women, just fucking kill them. Also, destroy all the alters and other holy objects. The reason is that the Israelites will inevitably start worshipping their foreign Gods, and we can't have that!

You might think it's ridiculous that a few spared children might convince all the Israelites to abandon their God for a new shiny God (I know I thought that for about half a second), but you'd be forgetting the Israelites' nature so far. They abandon God at every chance, even though they know that every time they do God kills thousands of them. And of course I can hardly blame them for doing so because God is such an asshole. This is such a frustrating story, because I hate all the characters.

Hmm, I was so excited, only to be let down again... in this next bit I thought we were going to get a reason why the Israelites are the favoritest. But, not really. It says that God "set his affection on you" because "the LORD loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors." What a steaming pile of bullshit. God loved the Israelites sooo much that he...

• made them slaves for 400 years
• makes them mutilate their genitals
• has killed hundreds of thousands of them (so far) for the horrible crime of "grumbling against him"
• killed off an entire generation before they reached the promised land, again for "grumbling"
• set up a crazy rule system for them such that the most minor offenses (such as dishonoring your parents) is punishable by death

Have I gotten it all yet? I'm not sure. Anyway you get the point.

Then there's the other "reason," because he swore an oath! But why did he swear an oath? And why to Abraham of all people?? This is no answer at all. This reminds me of when I taught astronomy lab, and so many students would answer questions like "why is mars red?" with "because the rocks on mars are red." But why are the rocks on mars red??? Same damn thing.

Anyway, then Moses says the thing about how those who love and obey God will be rewarded "for 1000 generations," but those who "hate God" will get "repaid to their face by destruction." Lol, destruction in the face? Whatever that means.

What about people who don't believe he exists? I suppose that must count as "hate." So where's all the destruction in my face? You'd think I'd have noticed that. Furthermore, how can both of those things be true? Wouldn't I get a free pass because someone in the past 1000 generations must have loved and obeyed God? But I'm also supposed to get destruction in my face? How does that work?

Then Moses tells them not to worry about the fact that the people they're supposed to kill are much stronger than they are, because God will be with you, and God will deliver them to you, and "LORD your God will send the hornet among them."

Wait, what was that last bit? Hornet?? What hornet?? Not even a hornet, it's the hornet. What a tantalizing clue. Without further information, I will assume that the conquest of the promised land went down something like this...

God says this:



and then this happens:



All of chapter 8 basically says, love God, obey God and his commandments, remember God, don't worship other Gods, etc... again. We've heard this before, countless times. Just fucking obey is the central theme of this book, clearly.

We do learn a few interesting things in chapter 8...

• Apparently the whole point of wandering in the wilderness for 40 years was to "humble" them. I guess, if by "humble" you mean "kill everyone over 20."
• The point of manna was to teach them that "man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD." Funny, I thought the point was so they wouldn't starve to death. Also, I don't know how that was supposed to teach them that, unless manna was obviously words from the mouth of God. From the description, it sounded more like bread. As in, man does live on bread alone.
  
• A secondary point of manna was to "test" them. What the hell kind of test is that.
  
• Apparently in those 40 years their clothes did not wear out. Woo hoo, a miracle.

Deuteronomy 1-6: Recap by Moses

Right, Deuteronomy. The Israelites are still by the Jordan River, which is apparently the boundary of the promised land, and they are about to cross over into it, and I guess kill everyone they find over there. But first, Moses (still not dead) spends about 3 chapters going over the story of how the Israelites got from Egypt to here. I can sort of understand the repetition in this case, because it's a new book.

It's pretty much the same, except a couple of interesting tidbits:

• In chapter 1, Moses tells the people about how God told him he wouldn't make it to the promised land, because he somehow fucked up the 'making water come out of a rock' thing. But here, Moses tells the Israelites that he blames them for his death. That's nice.
• In chapter 2, we find out more about why the Israelites killed some people and not others. Apparently they passed some people by because God told them to, because he had "given this land as a possession to the descendants of" Esau, or Lot, or whoever. In other words, God seems to have had other "covenants" with other tribes of people to give them land. Except in their cases, it didn't take about 500 years of slavery, hardship, wandering around in the wilderness, God himself killing hundreds of thousands of the very people he's supposed to like with plagues and fires, etc. Somebody explain to me in what way the Israelites are God's favorite people again? He treats them worse than everybody else.

Anyway, then in chapter 4 Moses starts talking about all the rules they're all supposed to follow. He basically says, you already know all the rules, and be damned sure to obey them, because...just do it, dammit! He also says, "remember that time when God gave us the 10 commandments..." even though I think he is officially the only person left who was actually alive then. Lol, crazy old man.

Then he reminds them about the "no idols!" rule, which I am absolutely convinced is the only thing God cares about, other than "no fucking yeast" and the "pleasing" aroma of burning animals. In what may be the biggest understatement of the bronze age, Moses also calls God "jealous" a couple of times in here.

Also at this point, Moses says (for the third time) that he is going to die here because "The LORD was angry with me because of you." Why is he blaming them? From my own understanding of what the bible said, God got upset for no apparent reason about the one time Moses made water come out of a rock. In that case, Moses can just blame God for being a fickle bitch.

On the other hand, it seems that the general interpretation of that story is that Moses didn't sufficiently glorify God for the water...he tried to take all the credit for it, in other words. In that case, it's mostly his own damn fault. And again, God is still partly to blame, for being a fickle bitch. Either way, he should really stop trying to guilt everyone about it.

Moses also threatens them that if they don't follow all God's rules, they will "quickly perish" and be destroyed, and scattered, and so on. Fantastic.

Then Moses starts talking about how fantastic God is. He created the universe! He brought us out of Egypt! You people had just better acknowledge his existence and obey his every fucking whim.

Then Moses names the 6 cities of refuge.

Man, this is all over the place. If the storyteller was trying to capture the fact that this is basically the incoherent ramblings of a dying old man, they did a great job!

For his next act, Moses goes over the 10 commandments... the 1st version, not the 2nd one (the one about "don't cook a baby goat in it's mother's milk" and so on). A couple of interesting bits here too.

• Moses says that even though God laid down the covenant law at Mt. Sinai, he wasn't actually making the covenant with them, it was with the people alive now. Except that's not what he said then... apparently God lied to them. Fantastic.
• Also, Moses says that at Mt Sinai the people were too afraid to go up the mountain...but at the time, I remember God repeatedly forbidding anyone but Moses from going up there.

Moses also tells them to obey "so that you may live." Always with the threats.

Now we get a whole chapter where Moses tells the Israelites to obey, remember, love, and fear (but mostly obey) God. Also, teach the covenant law to your children, and that they should all think and talk about it almost constantly (when you sit at home, when you walk along the road, etc). And write it on your doors and gates. Because this is totally not excessive.

Numbers 35-36: Again, nothing really happened

God, after declaring that the Levites weren't going to get any land, says that each of the other 11 tribes must give them land out of their own inheritance. Weird. Anyway, they get 48 cities, and some land.

6 of the Levite cities are supposed to be "cities of refuge," where a person who accidentally killed someone can go to hide and be safe from anyone who wants revenge, until they stand trial. Yep, because then no one will know where they are. Oh wait...

This is so weird. If you accidentally killed someone, you stand trial. But whatever the outcome, you have to stay in the city of refuge until the high priest dies. (Err, why then? What happens when the high priest dies?) If you leave the city of refuge, anyone can, without blame, kill you out of revenge. But if they kill you in the city, they'll be in trouble! Weird.

Now God clears up some point about inheritance. Remember a couple of chapters ago, God said that women can inherit property? Some people are upset about that, because if a woman owns property and then marries someone from another clan, her property will be removed from her clan and added to her husband's clan. Oh dear. Clearly this cannot be! And God agrees. To deal with this, God declares that if a woman owns property, she must marry someone from her own clan.

And that's the end of Numbers. The Israelites traveled from Mt. Sinai to near the promised land, spent 40 years wandering around killing people, and when the entire older generation of Israelites were dead (as promised by the oh-so-merciful God), they finally get to the River Jordan, where they are about to go into the holy land. Overall, I was impressed with how much this book managed to be horrifically violent and boring all at the same time.

Numbers 26-34: 8 chapters and nothing happened

God says, look, I know you're all busy with the conquest and whatnot, but I demand you do another census! And they count every male older than 20 years, and it was boring. It makes some statement about how not a single person counted last time is still alive, except Caleb and Joshua (and Moses I suppose). God promised that they would all be dead by the time they reached the promised land, and I guess that's one promise he actually kept. Wonderful.

Then God gives the Israelites some inheritance law. This is prompted by some uppity woman complaining to Moses about how she should get her father's inheritance, and for some reason God agrees with her. I am shocked.

For his next act, God orders Moses to climb a mountain and die, just like Aaron. And he names Joshua the new leader. But first, God spends a chapter reiterating some of the rules from Exodus and Leviticus. Just reliving those good old times, I suppose. There's actually a new rule here: if a woman makes a vow and her father or husband forbid her from actually making good on it, God will release her from the vow. Random, as ever.

Hmm, actually, before Moses can die God wants him to "take vengeance on the Midianites." For what, I don't know. So the Israelites killed every Midianite man, and took all the woman and children and goods for themselves, and burned everything else down. But that's not good enough for Moses, he tells them to kill every boy and every woman who isn't a virgin. And they do. Yay.

Then there is half a chapter about what they looted (including the virgins!) and how much, and how it was all split up. This is Numbers, after all, I suppose. I'm just surprised it wasn't longer.

I continue to be amazed at how the bible can be so horrifically violent, and yet so boring, all at the same time. I've never read anything else quite like it.

So they are about to cross the river Jordan, which is seemingly the official boundary of the "promised land." (So why have they been killing so many people on their way here? I thought the point of all that killing was so they could take over the promised land. But it seems it was just some pointless slaughtering of innocents, just for fun! Cause they weren't staying there...they just killed everyone and moved on. WTF.) A couple of clans come up to Moses (who for some reason isn't dead yet) and say they want to stay here. Moses calls them cowards for not going into battle with the rest. As a compromise, Moses agrees that their women and children can stay here because it's safer, but their men have to come help with the fighting, and they can't come back here until the whole promised land is conquered.

Interesting tidbit here... we finally find out the time scale of their trip now. I know it was supposed to take 40 years, but I've been wondering when (or if) that happened. So a few chapters ago, they just got near the promised land and sent scouts out, and God got upset about their realistic reports and killed them, and also promised that anyone who had "grumbled" would die in the wilderness before they get there. Apparently it is now 40 years since that happened...God's solution for killing them off in the wilderness was apparently to just make them wander around until that generation died of old age. I guess this is what God not killing people looks like (remember he promised not to kill them?) Brilliant loophole. Excellent story telling too. I had absolutely no idea that the seemingly random wandering of the past few chapters was supposed to have taken 40 years.

Anyway...then we get a chapter long recap of their journey so far. Boring. God takes the opportunity to once again tell them to fucking kill everybody. Or he will kill them and you. Somebody needs a nap.

Then God tells them what the boundaries of their land will be. And he tells them who will decide which clan gets what land. Can't these people decide anything for themselves?

By the way, Moses is still not dead.

Numbers 22-25: Shrek and the talking donkey

Right, where was I? Oh yes, the Israelites have just started their ruthless conquest of the promised land.

The Israelites are now camped in Moab near Jericho. I guess their reputation has preceded them, because the people of Moab are pretty freaked out. The king of Moab, Balak, sends some messengers out to some guy named Balaam, who is apparently some sort of holy man, or divination guy, or something. Balak knows he can't defeat the Israelites on his own, so he wants Balaam to curse them before they fight.

The funny thing about Balaam is that he talks to the same God as the Israelites do. I don't get why there is some guy who is on God's good side already in the promised land, with all the people who are so horrible that they all need to die. I wonder what happens to God's BFF Balaam when the Israelites take over? And I wonder if there are any other secret friends of God in the promised land? There must be. This is just weird. I was expecting Balaam to either be talking to some other God, or to himself.

So Balaam asks God if he should go with Balak and curse the Israelites, and God is like, "Don't curse the Israelites! They're my favorite! Even though I've personally killed hundreds of thousands of them..." So Balaam says no. Undeterred, Balak sends fancier messengers with money. This time God tells Balaam to go with them, but not to do anything without his OK.

This next part is just weird. Balaam, as per God's instructions, goes off with the messengers to see Balak. But God is pissed off for some reason. Is anyone surprised... So God sends a couple of angels to stand in the road and get in the way. Somehow Balaam doesn't see them, but his donkey does and stops. And Balaam beats the donkey to get it going again. 3 times this happens, then God speaks out of the donkey's mouth and makes it ask, "what did I ever do to you, you jerk?" Shrek - err, Balaam - has a nice little conversation with his donkey about how frustrated he is that the donkey won't move. Like as though this happens all the time. If that happened to me, the first thing out of my mouth would be something along the lines of "holy crap, a talking donkey!" But no.

Anyway, then suddenly Balaam can see the angels in the road. The angels tell him that he shouldn't be going with the messengers, and that they are here to "oppose" him, and that they would have killed him for going on, except the donkey stopped. I so don't get this...God told Balaam to go with the messengers. Balaam says just that, and the angel is like, "OK fine, go with them." Seriously.

He gets there without being murdered by God for following God's own instructions, and then makes Balak build 7 alters (that seems extravagant), then they sacrifice a bull and a ram on each one. Then Balaam, speaking for God, says nice things about the Israelites. Balak is like, WTF!? You're supposed to curse them! I know, come stand over here; maybe it's a location problem. (Weird.) They go somewhere else, built 7 more alters, and try again...and the same thing happens. So they do it all again. Then Balak is like, "go away, you suck." *pout* But Balaam has more to say, mostly about how the Israelites will crush their enemies (which is himself. Great.) Then they part ways and go home.

Lol. While all this is going on, the Israelites are apparently getting bored again. Again! (I've said before, I really don't know who I hate more, God or the Israelites.) "The men indulge in sexual immorality" with the Moab women (men having sex with women? what's the problem!) and participate in sacrifices to somebody named Baal. God makes Moses kill all the Israelite elders for allowing this to happen.

Just as this is being decided, some poor sap comes into the camp with a Midianite woman. One of the priests stabs them both with a spear. "Then the plague against the Israelites was stopped," though it never started. Oh well. God is thoroughly impressed with this display of zealotry, and decides not to kill anyone else today (though he already killed 24,000 with that plague, so he's still way ahead). And he decides to reward that priest and all his descendants by making them priests forever. Though he's already a descendant of Aaron, so I thought this already happened. Hmm. God is clearly expert at giving you what you already have, and making it seem like a big treat.

Numbers 20-21: God kills MORE Israelites, then he finally kills someone else

Miriam (sister of Moses and Aaron) is dead. Nobody cares. Surprise.

Once again, the Israelites have no water and are bitching about it. Moses does the old trick of hitting a rock with a staff (this time the magic Levite staff from chapter 17) and makes water come out of it. But apparently this time he fucks it up somehow, because God comes along and says that Moses and Aaron are going to die before they get to the promised land. Clearly, that is totally warranted.

Then the Israelites try to negotiate passage through the land of Edom (as I recall, Edom was Jacob's brother, aka Esau) but they are denied. They don't stop badgering the King of Edom about it until he sends his army out to threaten them.

Then God makes Aaron climb a mountain just to die naked on top of it, as (clearly) fair and just punishment for Moses somehow fucking up the whole 'making water come out of a rock' thing. He's naked because he has to hike up there with his son, and once up there, he has to give his priestly clothes to his son so he can be the next priest. Like they couldn't have done that before. Fantastic.

I like how everything Moses and Aaron do seems to take place on top of a mountain, or shut away inside of a tent...away from the prying eyes of the Israelites, in other words. These 2 sound like a couple of con artists to me. Aaron probably just took his son up there to tell him about the scam and then vanished into comfortable retirement or something.

The King of Arad hears that the Israelites are coming, so he sends out an army to capture some of them. Then the Israelites "completely destroyed them and their towns," with God's eager help of course. Fantastic.

While they are going around Edom, they start bitching once more about the lack of water and how sick they are of manna. So, obviously, God sends a bunch of poisonous snakes to bite them all. "And many Israelites died." Again. God is always killing his chosen people. And, as usual, the people repent and ask Moses to pray to God for them. He does, and God tells him to make a bronze snake, so all the people who were bitten and haven't died yet could look at it and be cured. Oh what a miracle, God saves a few people from the snakebites that he himself caused! God didn't kill quite as many of his own chosen people as he was going to! What. The. Fuck.

Seriously, I am so sick of this lame story. Israelites complain, God kills a bunch of Israelites, Israelites repent, God somehow manages to stop short of killing everybody, and for some stupid reason everybody is grateful. Ugh. How many times is this going to happen? I don't know who I hate more, God or the Israelites.

They hike on through the wilderness of 5 different places for who knows how long, until they come to a place called Beer (seriously). Here, God magnanimously decides he's going to give the Israelites water. Hey, good job God! You finally figured out the #1 reason the Israelites complain about you: you never give them water, even though you clearly have the power to. Then everyone sings a silly little song about a well. It never says whether they actually got their water, or if they were just promised it and then sang about it...I'll just assume they did get it.

Then they walk through 4 more places. After that, they ask the King of the Amorites for passage through his land. I don't get whey they walked through 9 places without talking to anybody, and then all of the sudden they do. Actually, I'm not even sure where they are going, it doesn't say. Are they just wandering around the holy land looking for a fight? It sure seems that way.

Anyway, he says no, and sends his army out to attack. The Israelites fight back, and apparently win, because they take over all the Amorite cities and "settled" there. They also left no survivors. Wonderful.

I guess after all that the Israelites aren't finished with the Amorites, because they also attack the surrounding areas to get the Amorites who managed to get away. Then they go to Bashan, fight their army, win, and again leave no survivors and take over their land. And they do it all with God's help. Hey, God is finally at least helping to kill somebody besides the Israelites.

Let the conquest begin, I guess. I wonder how long this goes on for?

Numbers 15-19: God kills some more Israelites

Right, so we've just gone from Mt. Sinai to the promised land (or at least near the promised land) in like 2 chapters, God almost kills everyone a couple of times on the way there, then they get there and have a fight about whether they can conquer the natives, God tries to kill everyone again, but gets talked into doing it later rather than now. Action packed, that was.

But now, it's boring again. God demands more sacrifice now that they're in the promised land, but doesn't say why. Maybe it's because they have more because the land is so great. But I think it's because God thinks he deserves a reward for his fine behavior thus far. That seems more in line with his nature anyway.

Here's a charming little story about how the Israelites found some random guy gathering wood on the sabbath. It's not clear to me, but it looks like this guy isn't even Israelite, so he's probably not even aware of their stupid laws. Nonetheless, God decrees that everyone has to stone him to death. So they do. Aww.

I don't get why gathering wood counts as working on the sabbath, but throwing rocks and someone until their body is a useless pile of pulp is not working on the sabbath. Oh well.

Then God tells Moses that everyone has to put blue tassels on the "corners of their garments," as a continual reminder of God and his petty commandments. Random.

In chapter 16 God kills some more Israelites. Seriously, God has killed more Israelites than he has killed anyone else so far, and they are his chosen people!! WTF?!

Chapter 16 starts with Korah and 250 others who think that the privileged priest class is unfair, and that everyone is holy and thus should be equals. Lol, I think Jesus said something like that; sadly for Korah, he is way ahead of his time. Moses's solution to this obviously terrible problem is to have the dissenters and all the priests offer incense to God, and see who God picks. (But how will they tell? It doesn't say, but later we learn it's the ones that don't burn to death that are the winners.) So they do that, and God shows up and tells the priests to stand clear so he can destroy the dissenters. Apparently God has not lost his flair for the dramatic. Moses pleads with God to only destroy the leaders and spare the rest (this shit is so predictable). So God makes a hole in the earth to swallow up the leaders, and their families (God is, yet again, murdering innocent children). Then God goes ahead and burns the rest of the 250 dissenters to death, in a big "fuck you!" to Moses.

Interestingly, the bible has this to say about the hole he made for the dissenters to fall into:

They went down alive into the realm of the dead ... the earth closed over them, and they perished and were gone from the community.

Is this the first mention of some sort of afterlife? Or is this the first mention of hell? I don't really get that.

Anywho, after this happens, all the Israelites get upset, thinking that they're going to be next. Moses has another uprising on his hands. God shows up and starts smiting everyone with a plague. Moses, what a quick thinker, has Aaron make atonement for the Israelites. Apparently just when he does that the plague suddenly stops, but not before 14,700 people died.

Er, God? Just a thought...maybe if you didn't habitually murder your own people, they wouldn't "grumble" about you so much.

Chapter 17, God gets this brilliant idea for getting the people to stop their grumbling. He gets Moses to collect a staff from each of the 12 tribes and put them in the God-tent. Then, "The staff belonging to the man I choose will sprout, and I will rid myself of this constant grumbling against you by the Israelites." What the fuck is this supposed to prove?

So they do that, and surprise surprise, it's Aaron and the Levites staff that blossoms. And grows acorns, no less. So Moses shows this to everyone, then puts the Levites staff back in the tabernacle. "Put back Aaron’s staff in front of the ark of the covenant law, to be kept as a sign to the rebellious. This will put an end to their grumbling against me, so that they will not die."

I still have no idea what the fuck this is all about.

Apparently the Israelites don't get it either, because the story ends with this: “We will die! We are lost, we are all lost! Anyone who even comes near the tabernacle of the LORD will die. Are we all going to die?" Guess that didn't work.

Chapter 18 is all about the duties and privileges of the Levites and the priests. Nothing we haven't heard before really, except that they aren't going to get any land in Canaan.

Chapter 19 gives the recipe for "water of cleansing." Take one red heifer outside the camp and burn it with cedar, hyssop, and scarlet wool. Collect the ashes and mix with water.

Why, oh why, would anyone want to make this, you ask? Why, it is used to cleanse people who are unclean because they've been in contact with dead bodies. (That is so specific. I remember like 30 ways to become unclean, but you only use the "water of cleansing" for one of them?) There's a bunch of ritual given involving sprinking the water on the unclean person, and presto, clean again!